Intersectional Rights and Ecological Burden

Sor Juana understood how multiple forms of marginalization intersect: she was a woman, a person of mixed heritage, and economically dependent in a rigid colonial hierarchy. This intersectional awareness illuminates climate justice, where the poorest and most vulnerable populations suffer greatest harm from environmental degradation they did not cause. Climate burden falls heaviest on indigenous peoples, women in agricultural societies, low-income communities near toxic sites, and Global South nations. Justice requires recognizing these overlapping oppressions—poverty, racism, patriarchy, colonialism—that concentrate environmental risk. Sor Juana's insistence on dignity and intellectual rights extends naturally to environmental rights: the right to clean water, breathable air, fertile soil. Climate responsibility means actively dismantling the systems that make some bodies and lands expendable.